Jamiat-e Islami

Jamiat-e Islami, also known simply as Jamiat, is an Islamist political party in Afghanistan that was founded in 1972. The party is the oldest Muslim political party in Afghanistan, having been founded from informal Islamist political groupings that had been active since the 1960s. Jamiat-e Islami opposed capitalism in favor of a communitarian ideology based on sharia law, and it had the support of the Tajiks of northern and western Afghanistan. The party fled to Pakistan after Mohammed Daoud Khan banned the party in 1973, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and a faction of the party split off to form the Hezbi Islami party in 1976. During the Soviet-Afghan War, Jamiat and Hezbi Islami formed the two main tendencies of the Islamist Mujahideen guerrillas, and Jamiat supported building a widely based movement that would create popular support. The movement gained popularity due to the battlefield victories of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and the "Lion of Panjshir" won several battles against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. In June 1990, Jamiat and Hezbi Islami suffered hundreds of losses during clashes in Logar and Parwan, and it continued to be one of the most powerful Mujahideen organizations during the Afghan Civil War. The party became intense rivals with the Taliban during the 1990s after the Taliban refused to hold democratic elections with Jamiat, and the two sides fought during the Afghan Civil War and the Afghanistan War of the 2000s-2010s. Party leader Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated by a Taliban suicide bomber in 2011, and his son Salahuddin Rabbani became the new party leader. In 2017, Jamiat held 23/249 House of the People seats and no House of Elders seats.